As luck would have it, the next morning after hitting Buy It Now on a Heathkit SB-1400 and matching supply, I saw the rig I REALLY would like to pick up — a Yaesu FT-757GX.
The guy had a BIN price of $225! Damn it! I could afford to buy it, but I had some concerns. First, the photo wasn't very good, and there was only one. I hate to base my purchase on a single blurry-ass photo!
I e-mailed for more pics, and the seller — amazingly — refused, saying that was the only pic of the radio he had! The guy must not have wanted to sell it very bad, though he probably knew it would move quickly at that price.
It's really stupid of me to want that rig anyway. Here I've got two state-of-the-art rigs on my shack desk (the Icom IC746PRO and the IC-756PROIII), and I'm debating the purchase of a 20-year-old Yaesu?? Sounds pretty silly when you look at it that way.
I'm tickled with the SB-1400 buy, and I'm very much looking forward to that one. I have from time to time surfed eBay for a FT-757GX; I had one and want another one. I may need to sell some crap around her first. I could probably sell a few bugs and make enough to buy one tomorrow, lol!
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In the new radio arena, I keep looking at the FT-2000 Yaesu and the Icom 7000. I love the look and feel of the 7000. They've come down a bit in price too — under $1,300.
The Yaesu FT-2000 is a real ham's rig — it looks like a what a good DX'ers rig should — lots of knobs, features and options. If I bought one, I would have to get the data unit (another GRAND!) to have the monitor/fish finder display. No way would I have a cool rig like that without that option.
The data unit must be a computer, as it will also manage logs, etc. Pretty neat stuff.
Of course, that pushes the total to about $4,000 for the rig — yikes!
I would have to sell all my rigs to generate the money for that — and frankly, I really enjoy the diversity of rigs I have now. In fact, I'm about flooded with damn diversity … I'm ready to annex the library next door to expand the shack!
I'm sleepy and getting goofy. More later …
DE KY4Z … 73 ES CUL MY FRIENDS … DE KY4Z dit dit …..